In this episode, we talk to Troy Murray about snglsDAO: a BitTorrent and blockchain-based system for distributing and monetizing video content, the crazy amounts of money SingularDTV raised in their ICO, and why the ICO system seems to have provided a bad incentive to develop actual products. Find out how snglsDAO is intending to take power away from centralized services like YouTube, why that goal suddenly seems incredibly urgent, and why a Distributed Autonomous Organization is the right way to go about it.


In our second interview with Emin Gün Sirer (the first one being lost to a catastrophic file system failure!), we discuss the current state of cryptocurrency, and just what Emin means when he says that Satoshi Nakamoto is 'dead.' We discover the secret shared lineage between BitTorrent and Cryptocurrency, and how they both tackle the 'chaos of the commons'. Of course TRON's recent acquisition of BitTorrent, Inc. comes in for some scrutiny -- Emin remains, let's say, skeptical. And, finally, we look at Emin's work on and around the all-new Avalanche protocol, which he sees as the most significant contribution to cryptocurrency since Bitcoin itself. 

Emin Gün Sirer is a co-director of The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts and associate professor of computer science at Cornell University. Known for significant contributions to peer-to-peer systems and computer networking, Emin was behind the first Proof-of-Work system for cryptocurrency, Karma, which debuted before Bitcoin. Having since become a respected commentator on and contributor to Bitcoin itself, Emin is now working on Avalanche, a new cryptocurrency protocol based on an entirely new model, promising fast, reliable transactions with significantly lower power overheads.

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In this episode we meet ZCash's Paige Peterson. ZCash is a privacy-enhanced fork of Bitcoin that can provide fully anonymous transactions using zero-knowledge cryptography. We discuss ZCash's relationship to Bitcoin and why Bitcoin could use a community manager; how the first P2P revolution in filesharing is segueing into the P2P money revolution - even bringing along some of the same developers; the role ZCash could play in hyperinflated economies like Venezuela's, and even closer to home; how (and if) government can continue after a general shift to using crypto as money; and finally we delve into New Hampshire's libertarian Free State Project, whose participants are doing a kind of 'live philosophy' on how future communities run on Bitcoin or ZCash might work. Could we have socialism without centralisation or 'big government'?
Paige has been immersed within the peer-to-peer technology world for 5 years and counting. Through roles with mesh networking startup Open Garden, P2P torage and communications company, MaidSafe, and as Co-organizer for the San Francisco Bitcoin Meetup, she has gained appreciation for the diverse applications of decentralized networks. She is interested in a wide variety of digital media and tech entrepreneurship and is an advocate for open standards, user privacy and decentralized technologies. After receiving a BFA practicing experimental tech art with a strong focus on complexity in nature, her interest was drawn towards political and technological activism centering around concepts and tools for individual empowerment.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch


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In this episode, we hang out with Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, to discuss the origins of BitTorrent in the Mojo Nation project, why BitTorrent is still relevant given our increasingly low-cost bandwidth environment, how Big Content could have competed with Free, but chose not to - and the bumpy last years at Bram's company BitTorrent Inc., including a near-death foray into content licensing and production. And for those of you following cryptocurrencies: stop the press - Bram is starting his own bitcoin competitor.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Eric Barch


Presented by TorrentFreak

Sponsored by Private Internet Access & Premiumize

Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac, Eric Barch, Nelson Larios

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The Grey Lodge was an underground private torrent tracker used by millions of people per month in their quest to uncover the esoteric, strange and the downright weird. In this episode we hear from Joe Matheny, one of the founders of the site, about how it kicked off in the very early days of BitTorrent, online culture in the early days of the Internet, proto-copyright trolls, how even weirdos eventually get pursued by the MPAA, and how the demise of indie trackers from Grey Lodge to What.CD mean a net loss for our culture. Coming soon: the second part of this interview, in which Joe discusses his work as an early creator of "this is not a game" ARG experiences and his well-known work Ong's Hat, The Incunabula Papers. We'll be making that available for supporters on the Patreon (and maybe more widely) in due course. In the meantime, if you're curious to take a look at some of Joe's work, he's been kind enough to give us a free pack including Ong's Hat and some samples from his ARG! Enjoy.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss


Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by Private Internet Access

Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac

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Jim Munroe is a Canadian science fiction author, film director and games designer. He publishes his work independently under the imprint No Media Kings. Jim was managing editor at the magazine Adbusters in the 1990s, before publishing his debut novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask in 1999. The novel was put out by HarperCollins, a major publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch, and though the book was successful, Munroe so disliked the experience that he launched No Media Kings as a venue for publishing and promoting his own works independently, and a guide to self-publishing for other prospective writers. Join us as we discuss why an ex-Sony exec loves piracy, and if that marks the end of the cool pirate; why Millennials won't pay for content or watch adverts, and how to make them love creators; and how your operating system can be used to operate YOU - and not just by stopping you from pirating. Finally Jim discusses his new interactive fiction creation software Texture (try it! it's free!), and his virtual reality sci-fi series Haphead, and offers some great tips for creators looking to keep their heads in our dirty, digital world.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss


Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by  Private Internet Access

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In this first episode of our new season, we interview Tamas Kocsis, founder and developer of the potentially revolutionary P2P platform, Zeronet. While it's a relatively new project with just a few thousand users, we love Zeronet: it gives us the ability to develop completely distributed websites, invulnerable to censorship of any kind. With Tor anonymity baked in, at least on the Windows version, that creates a very powerful environment for free expression. Tamas talks us through the history of the platform, some of the features he's working on at the moment, and his plans to add a BitTorrent plugin that may be able to provide distributed, anonymous video streaming - sounds like a new headache for Hollywood just around the corner. But Zeronet isn't just a about torrents: we also hear from Tamas how it can be used right now to set up anonymous messaging, forums, marketplaces, and more. Zeronet has the potential to be the platform that finally moves us past the constant "whack-a-mole" game being played between torrent sites and Big Entertainment. With Kickass Torrents and YIFY both having succumbed recently, and calls from TPB's Peter Sunde for more innovation from the P2P world, perhaps Zeronet is a project whose time has come.
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Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss


Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by  Private Internet Access

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Donate to STEAL THIS SHOW! We'll namecheck donors on the show, offer behind-the-scenes archive, transcripts and more!
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This episode of STEAL THIS SHOW is the last in Season One, Distribution On The Edge. Our next season will broaden its focus to look at how P2P is changing everything from media to money, and beyond.

Trevor Haldenby is the founder of The Mission Business, 'a boutique consultancy from the future' that helps organizations tell stories about their plans for tomorrow. Amongst others he's worked with Ubisoft, Habbo, and Autodesk.

We caught up with Trevor in his homebase of Toronto, Canada to hang out, cut loose and discuss wide-ranging issues such as: why fake pirated movies are annoying the MPAA, "Swedeing" films for fun and profit, how to run a phishing scam targeting Game Of Throne downloaders, professionally ignoring piracy fines, the history of the 911 scam, BiTorrent's 15th anniversary, and more!

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne
Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss


Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by  Private Internet Access

For sponsorship enquires, please email info@stealthisshow.com


Donate to STEAL THIS SHOW! We'll namecheck donors on the show, offer behind-the-scenes archive, transcripts and more!
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Featuring Ashwin Navin and Dave Harrison. Ashwin was one of the founders of BitTorrent Inc., and is now CEO of Samba TV; Dave was one of the inventors of BitTorrent streaming and is Samba's CTO. We discuss Screening Room, the founder of Napster's plan to bring movies to your living room on release day; the BPI's prodigious anti-piracy efforts and why the future may doom them to failure; and the ongoing war between Google and the MPAA. Finally, Ashwin and Dave share what they've learned since the early days of BitTorrent, hint at where things are headed in the world of online TV, point to a couple of interesting developments in the P2P world, and wonder if maybe free is not the future, after all.

Produced & Hosted by Jamie King

Edited & Mixed by  Eric Bouthiller

Original Music by  David Triana

Web Production by  Siraje Amarniss


Presented by TorrentFreak

This episode sponsored by  Private Internet Access

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